Efforts to slow down the surge may be too little, too late

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Wed, 2020-11-25 10:02 — mike kraft

Officials tell public to stay home. Is anyone listening? Governors, mayors impose dozens of new coronavirus restrictions that experts say may be too little, too late. Joel Achenbach, Ben Guarino Washington Post

America is not in shutdown, but every day, it edges closer to something like that. With minimal help from the White House or Congress, governors and mayors are trying desperately to tamp down a fall surge in coronavirus infections without crashing their economies — or inciting a revolt from pandemic-fatigued constituents who want this ordeal to be over.

In Newark, Democratic Mayor Ras Baraka announced what he described as a 10-day “lockdown” starting Wednesday — although city officials say this is an ask, not an order.

In Denver, Democratic Mayor Michael Hancock on Friday pleaded with residents to stay home for the next month. “I know this is hard. I know you hate this,” Hancock said.

In Ohio, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine this month announced he would enforce a statewide mask mandate. And Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, also a Republican, put a limit on how many guests can be invited to a household gathering. The number: zero.

But it is not clear that the measures imposed across the country in the past few weeks are stringent or timely enough to halt the dismaying autumn surge of coronavirus infections that already has pushed some hospitals into crisis and driven up death tolls. The numbers have gone from ominous to disastrous in just a few weeks. More than 170,000 people a day on average are now becoming infected and more than 85,000 are hospitalized. ...

“Most governors are trying to fight a forest fire of infection with garden-hose measures, and they aren’t even aiming at the right targets or starting at the right time,” warned Anne Sosin, program director at the Dartmouth College Center for Global Health Equity.

Timing is key, experts say. Modest restrictions can be effective if imposed early, said Toby Phillips, executive director of the Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker, a project that has been collecting pandemic-response policies from 190 countries. ..

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